Poetry

Note: Formal Ballroom Dance competition involves five specific dance forms. This sonnet cycle attempts to introduce and describe them. I have also composed and attached audio recordings of a Waltz and Tango as...

Cicadas There is, I know, some benefit in this, this cycle of emerging, breeding, dying- so brief a time for knowing any bliss, or making friends, or new endeavors trying - only to bring forth offspring...

The Limerick I’d Love to Write by Joe Tessitore There once was a President Trump And many thought he was a chump. ____But none was more shrewd ____Than this big-city dude, Now back over his wall...

  A song’s composer’s music might reveal A question or idea in such a way That black notes penned on paper weigh what’s real; But if unheard his work subsides to gray. That gray divides...

  Birthday Greeting to a Doomed Child a song of lament decrying New York´s “birthday abortion” law, approved January 22, 2019 So, welcome to this world, little one, little one! Your first and...

  To fight a fight on ground of your own choosing, To force the foe to battle at your pleasure Is feasible so long as you’re not losing— And so you have, so long as you remember. The Right...

  Its coarse name belies this silken treasure, with iridescent dome and spiral apse. Imagination slips in with pleasure, to contemplate an opus like blown glass. Perhaps a queen lived here (no...

These poems are part of Daniel Galef’s series Imaginary Sonnets. Each sonnet is a verse soliloquy from the perspective of a different historical figure.      Gillette to Frenhofer (spoken by...

  May 2018 How pleasant to recall the light of spring, Which with effulgence breaks the woodland morn, As we through beech-clad glade walk marveling At overlay of Bluebells gayly born. We then trace...

I Am One, Then "In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of Hell" - Isaiah 38.10 I am one, then, who's been to hell: __Cut down in my old prime; One day solid, sound as a bell, __The next day quite...

Icarus’ Fall at College   Prologue Dear reader, surely, you must think, __“What could be taught to us That we haven’t already learned __Of mythic Icarus? “His plunge is clearly a...

  We are a young ocean. We, __with merry veins once meek and coy, shall fill the belly of this sea. And at our bounds of God’s decree __pleasant lines will drink in joy. As our waters swim and...

  Forgetting the Tiananmen Square Massacre for 30 Years Robbed of life and liberty in open air, Young citizens ran out of breath inside the Square. Hot bullets opened skin to pump bright flesh holes...

  Half man, half monster—I am in a maze. They banished me because of others’ sins. Among these walls, I’m doomed to spend my days. No happy ending. No one ever wins. It was the king,...

a satirical piece in Sapphic stanzas   Every day they come in a flood: unwanted Big manila envelopes stuffed with verses. Mostly garbage—that’s what we sift and filter Looking for talent. Like...

The clerihew is a kind of epigrammatic verse (normally) consisting of a pair of rhyming couplets. The first line will usually introduce the name of a famous person. The following three lines will describe some...

Song of the Yew, at the University of Georgia, Athens a sprig of General Oglethorpe's ancestral yew was transported and planted aside the University of Georgia Arch on College Square, in Athens Evergreen,...

  A New Life an English ode With the blending of two souls, in a dance as old as time a spark ignites, and a cell divides; a baby—hers and mine. Conceived in a moment of utter joy, a new and...

A truncated quatrain is a form I have invented in an attempt to find some appropriate English form similar—for its brevity and single-mindedness in theme—to the Japanese haiku. They consist in four lines...

  John Company was the familiar name of the Honourable East India Company which administered India until the Indian Mutiny in 1858 But, Oh, if only you would raise your eyes, take time to look, not...

  Solemn Legion of the brave Marching by there grave to grave, Defending faith and family, Fighting wars for our country. Solemn Legion boots in time, Drummers drumming, bagpipes whine, Marking...

The Forlorn Hope—Vicksburg 1863 Back in Vicksburg, the town was surrounded With a battle line twelve miles long. U.S. Grant sought to conquer the city, But the rebel defenses were strong. An advance...

Delimitation To rhyme with proper meter in the cause Of classic forms is nothing anyone Should derogate, but old poetic laws Were fashioned to enshrine a style, not stun The poet into incoherencies By...

We are pleased to announce the publication of The Society of Classical Poets’ Journal VII. The new journal is larger and more impressive than any past year, with dozens of color paintings inside, greater...

  Skin hard as jade, Mouth like a blade, I’m seldom dry, A dross lookst I, And hard to find, But my inside Has hidden treasure For woman’s pleasure.   Put your answers in the...

Fifty years ago . . . (it seems Like only yesterday) . . . the dreams, The hopes, and the unspoken fear That marked and marred my Senior year . . . I faced a future plagued with doubt; A Cold War world...

lyrics inspired by the movie Unplanned Ms. Sally loved the parties, spent her nights out "on the town." Her door was open for the boys, whenever they came ‘round. Then one morning when she woke she knew...

  While driving on an April day along a winding road Through rolling hills, beside the way, I spied a small abode A little cottage in a glen below a bridge I crossed, The sight of which, had I not...

  I Want To Believe I want to believe a scarlet sky Promises sunshine. Don’t know why They say red skies mean turbulence— To me it doesn’t make much sense. I want to believe in love...

New Day Welcome to a new day. I must go Ahead with life as it presents to me I have to forge ahead steadfast and show What moving on and steering forth can be For past is only dreams and memories And...

    Ethereal Frontiers beyond my view: Allow thy bards to sing their songs divine And thus remind my soul of what it knew, When I still drank the Spirit in the Wine. Oh Faith, confess...

  We shake our heads, and wonder, “Why?” aloud each time some speeding truck plows through a crowd, or grinning gunman gloats at blood and breath spilled and extinguished by his date with...

A Poet’s Lament - for Charles Southerland, whose brilliant prose style I so painfully tried to imitate and incorporate Nobody cried when poetry died a long, slow death - a final breath, maybe even a last...

White Is A Color, Too It seems strange to have to say this After what that great man taught, Yet I have seen so much amiss That I fear we all forgot. I’m here to share an opinion, Which might be a...

by Lew Icarus Bede The way I dealt with T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland was to write a poem, equally desperate, in that same allusive style—with notes. That unpublished poem Cicadas' Voices, written in the...

by David Watt I recently came across the following “square poem” attributed to Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carrol). Please note that each of the six lines may be read horizontally, or...

Congratulations to contest winners David Whippman (First Place), Randal Burd (Second Place), Theresa Rodriguez (Third Place), and Dusty Thorne (Fourth Place). Mr. Whippman's winning poem is below. Other poems...

A Journey to the East by Evan Mantyk is a historical and poetical fairytale adventure styled after Journey to the West, by Ming Dynasty writer Wu Cheng’en. The first nine chapters of the former may be read...

Bunny by Sally Cook Indebted to a simple spark of life, You missed your chance at Europe’s wondrous door. A conscientious mother and a wife, You danced your dance upon an inland shore. Your simple...

  I woke this day from napping, and I saw you lying there, Across the room, upon a couch, asleep without a care. The golden beams of twilight streaming through the windowpane, Shone wondrously upon...